Sunday, August 14, 2005
Competition expected to cut DVD-R drive prices by as much as 25% by year's end

Sources within the DVD recordable industry predict a further OEM drive price decrease after summer holidays.

As new recordable technologies are on the horizon, like the next generation Blue-Ray and HD-DVD formats, the industry tries to sell as much drives as possible. This is expected to lead prices to an unprecedented minimum of even below 30 USD per recorder.

It is speculated that the biggest drive makers such as Japan's Pioneer and NEC, South Korean Hitachi-LG and Toshiba-Samsung and the Taiwanese BenQ, Lite-On and Asustek are expected to try to sell as much 16x DVD burners as possible.

All this might be a bold indication of Blue-Ray getting momentum over its HD-DVD rival, as some major manufacturers seem to actively pursue the case of establishing new production lines for the new Blue-Ray based recorders expected to hit the market long before HD-DVD recorders.

Sources within the industry that were contacted for commending on this, said that "given the fact that some far east countries have recently diversified their national portfolio, shifting from USD to Euro, it might be more profitable for some of their manufacturers to start selling pc equipment in reduced OEM prices..."